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Here’s an interesting map. Vinepair has created a global chart of “The Most Popular Beer in Every Country,” based on “market share for each country” from “the most recent year available.” If they couldn’t find the data, or if there wasn’t a clear winner, they left them off the map, which is why there are some countries with no beer listed. That’s especially true in Africa and parts of Asia but, curiously, for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, too.

An online article today on Business Insider examines the World Health Organization’s most recent Global status report on alcohol and health 2014. Entitled Here Are The Drunkest Countries In The World, it gives the highlights of the WHO report. Unfortunately, in my experience WHO tends to lean on the side of prohibitionists in their approach to alcohol, highlighting primarily the bad aspects while ignoring the positive. As a result, WHO tends to be all doom and gloom about alcohol in the world. It’s a somewhat odd position. At any rate, they use the map below, showing per capita alcohol consumption by country, as of 2010 (but it’s the same data in the 2014 report).

One thing to notice is that despite the hue and cry from U.S.-based anti-alcohol groups, American consumption has been flat or down since its 1980 high point, and worldwide we’re pretty much in the middle of the consumption scale, not the lowest or the highest, as they’d have us believe. Canada drinks more than we do. So does Australia and most of Europe, especially Eastern Europe and Russia.

But even with WHO’s very conservative view of drinking alcohol, American patterns of risky drinking is even lower than average, squarely in the second-lowest category. For example, Mexico may drink less than Americans per capita, but still manages to drink in a more risky manner, and Canada and us are the same, despite out-drinking Americans. Likewise, Western Europe, which drinks more than most, engages in the least risky behavior, at least as WHO defines it.

So if we accept the way WHO comes up with that statistic — stated as by considering “the usual quantity of alcohol consumed per occasion, proportion of drinking events when drinkers get drunk, proportion of drinkers who drink daily or nearly daily, festive drinking, drinking with meals, and drinking in public places — then overall there’s a lot less risky drinking in the world than the first chart would have us believe. While per capita consumption seems to follow the expected bell curve, risky behavior does not, with far less dark spots. The riskiest countries are concentrated in just a few nations, and looks even larger than it really is because one of the countries is geographically very big. The countries in the second-riskiest tier looks to be less than ten nations, suggesting that a majority of places to do not engage in a great deal of risky drinking, which is frankly what I’d expect. Either way, I’m not sure hardly any deserve the title “drunkest countries.”

It’s pretty close to last year’s list. The top two, both Chinese brands, remain unchanged. But Bud Light has jumped up from #5 to claim the third spot, while Bud slipped down one to #4. Yanjing Beer, which was #4 on last year’s chart, slipped to #6, while Brazil’s Skol shimmied up from seventh to #5. Heineken moved up one to #7, while another Chinese brand (owned by ABI) — Harbin — is at #8, but was not on last year’s list. Finally, Brahma and Coors Light switched placed at the bottom of the list. Last year, Coors Light was #9, this year it’s Brahma. Corona was #6 on last year’s chart, but is not on the list at all this year.

Here’s a cool interactive map created by Ghost in the Data. Using data from the World Health Organization, the map shows “How much — and which — alcohol is drunk in the world during a week?” As the instructions explain: “Move over countries to learn it, or use the buttons to show the top wine, beer and spirits drinkers or each country’s favorite drink.” The first three maps show each alcohol type with darkest countries drinking more and lighter one drinking less that of that particular type. Check it out at Wine, Beer or Spirits?

Beer

Wine

Spirits

This map, called “Favorite,” shows each country by which of the alcohol types is the most popular there, and its intensity shows how popular it is relative to the other types.

Favorites by Type

If you move your mouse over each nation, you can see the breakdown for the alcohol types. I seem to recall that the WHO data also has an “other” category for native drinks that aren’t one of the big three so I’m not sure how they addressed that, whether including them as the one they most closely resembled or if they simply ignored them.

Forbes recently released their annual list of the wealthiest people in the world. Thirteen people on the Full List Of The World’s 500 Richest People are involved in the alcohol industry, at least in part. Of those 13, ten are involved in beer companies.

Jorge Paulo Lemann, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and also co-founded the Brazilian investment banking firm Banco Garantia, which today is known as Banco de Investimentos Credit Suisse (Brazil)
Founded 2008; Along with Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Herrmann Telles, formed ABI, which was created out of a merger of Anheuser-Busch and InBev (which itself was a merger of InterBrew and AmBev from 2004, and each of those companies were the results of previous mergers, as well). Just a few of their numerous beer brands include, Beck’s, Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois
Forbes Richest List: #34; $19.7 billion

Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, Heineken International (The Netherlands)
Founded 1864; Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken is the daughter of Freddy Heineken, the Dutch industrialist, and Lucille Cummins, an American from a Kentucky family of Bourbon whiskey distillers, and is the controlling owner of the world’s third-largest brewer, Heineken International, which owns a worldwide portfolio of over 170 beer brands in addition to Heineken
Forbes Richest List: #116; $10.4 billion

Marcel Herrmann Telles, Anheuser-Busch InBev, along with retailer Lojas Americanas and real estate investment firm São Carlos Empreendimentos e Participações SA (Brazil)
Founded 2008; Along with Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Jorge Paulo Lemann, formed ABI, which was created out of a merger of Anheuser-Busch and InBev (which itself was a merger of InterBrew and AmBev from 2004, and each of those companies were the results of previous mergers, as well). Just a few of their numerous beer brands include, Beck’s, Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois
Forbes Richest List: #119; $10.2 billion

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, Real Estate Tycoon and owner of ThaiBev, (Thailand)
Founded 1991; Sirivadhanabhakdi is a drinks entrepreneur who created Chang Beer, teaming up with Carlsberg in 1991 as part of a joint venture to tap into Thailand’s growing beer market, which at the time was dominated by the Boon Rawd Brewery, which brewed Singha beer. Three years later he launched his own beer Chang (Thai for ‘elephant’), which went on to take 60% of the local market share.
Forbes Richest List: #141; $9 billion

Carlos Alberto Sicupira, Anheuser-Busch InBev (Brazil)
Founded 2008; Along with Marcel Herrmann Telles and Jorge Paulo Lemann, formed ABI, which was created out of a merger of Anheuser-Busch and InBev (which itself was a merger of InterBrew and AmBev from 2004, and each of those companies were the results of previous mergers, as well). Just a few of their numerous beer brands include, Beck’s, Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois
Forbes Richest List: #146; $8.9 billion

Pierre Castel & family, Groupe Castel (France)
Founded 1949; The French drinks company which Pierre founded with his his eight siblings owns or co-owns 22 French vineyards, plus 1,600 acres of vineyards in Africa, primarily in Morocco, Tunisia and Ethiopia. In 1990, they bought the African Brasseries et Glacières Internationales and has since built 45 breweries in Africa, where they now have 25% of the market there, with their two biggest beer brands, Flag and Castel
Forbes Richest List: #166; $8 billion

In addition, Forbes also created a list of America’s Richest Families, of which eight of the 179 listed are engaged in the alcohol trade, or at least made their fortunes in alcohol.

America’s Richest Booze Families

Busch Family, Anheuser-Busch
Founded: 1876; Although they recently lost control of their beer empire, the 30 or so members of the Busch family are still worth a cool 13 billion, enough to even buy some more expensive beer with flavor.
Forbes Families List: #17; $13 billion

Brown Family, Brown-Forman
Founded 1870; The 25 members of the Brown family of Kentucky control a wine and spirits giant that includes such brands as Early Times, Finlandia vodka, Jack Daniels, Korbel, Southern Comfort and many others.
Forbes Families List: #20; $13 billion

Gallo Family, E&J Gallo Winery
Founded 1933; Brothers Ernest and Julio Gallo started their wine business in a shed in Modesto, California. Today there are around 14 family members still running the show, which is the largest U.S. wine company, accounting for one-quarter of all American wine. They also produce brandy, cider, gin, vodka, and wine coolers, along with numerous wine labels.
Forbes Families List: #25; $9.7 billion

Reyes Family, Reyes Holdings, including beer distributors Reyes Beverage Group
Founded 1976; Christopher and M. Jude Reyes are co-chairs of the company. David “Duke” Reyes is the CEO of Reyes Beverage Group, the largest beer distributor in the U.S., while brothers James and Tom are executives at Reyes Beverage Group and brother William is a director of Reyes Holdings.
Forbes Families List: #29; $8 billion

Wirtz Family, Wirtz Beverage Group
Founded 1926; Although they started out in real estate, they made their fortune selling alcohol beginning in 1945, and they’ve also owned the Chicago Blackhawks since 1954
Forbes Families List: #64; $4.2 billion

Coors Family, Coors Brewing
Founded 1873; Adolph Coors founded the brewery in Golden, Colorado, and today the Coors family owns over 15% of MolsonCoors. Until 2002, Adolph’s great-grandson Peter Coors was CEO of Coors, but today is the chairman of MillerCoors.
Forbes Families List: Tie #81; $2.9 billion

Jackson Family, Jackson Family Wines
Founded 1956; Jess Stonestreet Jackson and wife Barbara Banke, both lawyers, co-founded Jackson Family Wines in California in the 1980s, perhaps best know for their Kendall Jackson wines. After Jackson died of cancer at age 81 in 2011, Banke became chairman and proprietor. All five of Jackson’s children also hold interests in the company and are active in running it. Don Hartford, husband of daughter Jenny Jackson-Hartford, is CEO. The family owns 35 vineyards, including nearly 30,000 acres in California, that sell more than 6 million cases of wine a year. The flagship winery is Kendall Jackson in Sonoma County.
Forbes Families List: Tie #100; $2.3 billion

And finally, on the list of the Forbes 400, the Richest People in America, a couple of family members from the previous family list also made it onto this list with their personal wealth.

The cut-off this year for the Forbes 400 was around $1.3 billion. If you’re worth less than that, you don’t quite make the list, but Forbes also created a small list of people they think are the Ones to Watch.

401. Jim Koch, Boston Beer Co.; $1 billion; World Rank: Unknown

Koch was the richest person on the “Ones to Watch” list, so with a little luck he’ll join Dick Yuengling in the Billionaire Beer Boys Club next year.

Here’s an interesting chart showing the alcoholic beverage that has the highest consumption in each country of the world, based on data from 2011, as far as I can tell. The data is based on liters of pure alcohol.

More than 45% of total recorded alcohol is consumed in the form of spirits, predominantly in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific.

Approximately 36% of total recorded alcohol is consumed in the form of beer. Beer consumption is highest in the Region of the Americas.

Commonly, high overall consumption levels are found in countries such as the Russian Federation, which display both high beer and high spirits consumption.

Consumption of wine as a percentage of total recorded alcohol is globally quite low (8.6%), with significant levels of alcohol consumed in the form of wine in the European Region (26.4%).

Beverages other than beer, spirits and wine (e.g. fortified wines, rice wine or other fermented beverages made of sorghum, millet, maize) have the highest share in total recorded consumption in the African Region (48.2%), and in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (31.3%).

Most consumed alcoholic beverages in terms of liters of pure alcohol, which do not necessarily reflect that the overall level of consumption of this alcoholic beverage is high.For example in India, spirits are the most consumed alcoholic beverages, but this does not mean that the consumption level of spirits is high, but that the proportion of total alcohol consumed in the form of spirits is high.

Note:

Beer: includes malt beers.Wine: includes wine made from grapes.Spirits: include all distilled beverages.Other Alcohol: includes one or several other alcoholic beverages, such as fermented beverages made from sorghum, maize, millet, rice, or cider, fruit wine, fortified wine, etc.

Just when I think prohibitionists can’t possibly get any scarier, I found out something new to give me the willies. I saw a odd set of letters retweeted by the good nut jobs at Alcohol Justice yesterday; the letters in question were the IOGT. I figured if they were in bed with AJ they would be worth knowing about. I’m not sure how I missed this group. They’re not exactly a secret, despite having all the trapping of a secret society. The IOGT was originally the “International Order of Good Templars,” a temperance organization founded in the 1850s. They eventually changed their name to the International Organisation of Good Templars in the 1970s because they felt Organisation sounded less like a scary secret society than Order. They also dropped the secret rituals and, I assume, got rid of the secret handshake. It didn’t help, and that’s probably why today they just use the initials IOGT.

An 1868 membership certificate from a chapter in Michigan. Looks harmless enough.

Apparently, it’s “structure [was] modeled on Freemasonry, using similar ritual and regalia. Unlike many, however, it admitted men and women equally, and also made no distinction by race.” Except in the American South, of course, where folks naturally demanded there be separate lodges for black and white members. So you know they were good people. Nothing furthers a stated goal of “liberation of peoples of the world leading to a richer, freer and more rewarding life” by “promot[ing] a lifestyle free of alcohol and other drugs” like continuing racism after the abolishment of slavery.

In 1875, after the American Civil War, the American senior body voted to allow separate lodges and Grand Lodges for white and black members, to accommodate the practice of segregation in southern US states. In 1876, Malins and other British members failed in achieving an amendment to stop this, and left to establish a separate international body. In 1887 this and the American body were reconciled into a single IOGT.

Throughout the late 19th century, chapters were formed all over the world and today they’re headquartered in Sweden, where it’s known as the IOGT-NTO, and other hyphenated suffixes are used in the forty nations with a chapter.

Apparently they’re fine with perpetuating stereotypes of wine for women, beer for men.

Here in America, it’s IOGT-USA, where there are 21 local chapters in only five states. On the plus side, “women were admitted as regular members early in the history of the Good Templars. In 1979, there were 700,000 members internationally, though only 2,000 in the country of the IOGTs origin, the United States.” I didn’t see any more recent membership figures, so who knows how many Good Templars there are now in the 21st century.

They have a somewhat unintentionally comic petition up on a separate website, with the headline “United to Expose the Alcohol Industry.” They go on: “It tears families apart, trashes personal ambition and holds back developing countries. Still, no one has looked deeper into the alcohol industry and demanded that they take responsibility for their actions. It’s time we expose them.” Seriously, “no one has looked deeper into the alcohol industry and demanded that they take responsibility for their actions?” Isn’t that what the IOGT, and all of the other prohibitionist groups have been doing for well over 150 years? But now “it’s time we expose them?” Maybe it’s because their history is rooted in being a secret society, but what exactly is there to expose? What exactly is secret about the global beer industry that hasn’t been written about, endlessly dissected, debated and discussed?

Down a little farther on the petition page, they claim that the “alcohol industry still rule people and markets without being watched, examined or globally questioned by media or lawmakers.” Um, Alcohol Justice is doing just that; styling themselves as the “industry watchdog.” And they’re hardly alone. Countless organizations are keeping a careful watch on the alcohol industry. It’s one of the most tightly regulated industries in the U.S., and I suspect that’s true in most other places, too.

I get that you don’t like alcohol, and think everybody should just stop drinking it, but let’s not pretend this idea just occurred to you last week. Or that brewers are part of some secret cabal to ruin your world. Because really, it’s not “your” world, it’s “ours,” by which I mean “everybody’s.” And many of us like a nice beer, thank you very much. You don’t want to drink alcohol? Fine, don’t drink it. No one is telling you that you must, I only wish you’d extend us the same courtesy and stop telling us about every problem drinker, as if we’re all the same. There are troubled people everywhere, doing all sorts of bad things, many of them worse than drinking too much. Like virtually every aspect of human existence, there is good and bad, and everyone should have the right to choose their own path. For every anecdote about an alcoholic, there are 99, or 95, people who aren’t; good people who are drinking responsibly, holding down jobs, raising families and getting on with their lives. They don’t deserve to have you condemning them every chance you get.

Examples of non-alcoholic fun. I have fun without alcohol all the time, but only in moderation.

The 2014 World Beer Cup Awards were announced Friday night in Denver, Colorado. This was the 10th time for the biennial international competition, with a record 4,754 entries from 1,403 breweries in 58 countries, judged by 219 judges (including yours truly). One interesting note about this year’s judges is that 76% of them were from outside the United States. This year, 281 awards were given in 94 separate categories to breweries in 22 countries. Congratulations to all the winners.

One of the biggest changes to this year’s competition was the implementation of a lottery system. Any brewery that wants to enter their beer first registers their desire to participate in the World Beer Cup over a set period of time. Once the number of interested breweries is known, then the number of different beers each one can enter is determined. This year, every brewery could enter up to four beers. As a result, the winners were far more diverse than in any previous year. Of all 281 award winners, only one brewery won three awards and 26 breweries won two.

Not surprisingly, the category with the highest number of entries was American-Style IPA, with 223. Second was American-Style Pale Ale, with 121 entries, and the third most-entered category was Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer, with 111. The average number of entries for each category was 50 beers.

Overall, the United States won the most medals, with 205. Germany was second, with 27, and Canada came in third, with 7. Belgium and the United Kingdom each won five. Italy garnered 4 awards, while Australia, the Czech Republic, Japan and the Netherlands each brought home three.

Within the U.S., California won the most medals, with 35. Colorado was second with 21 and Oregon was third, with 16. Washington won 11, Illinois brought home 8 and Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin each won 7 awards. Michigan breweries won 6, and Minnesota, New York and Ohio had five victories apiece.

Here’s an exciting development and a sure sign that the world of beer is growing smaller as the reach of better beer extends around the globe. Today in Berlin, the formation of a new international trade organization was announced: The Global Association of Craft Beer Brewers (GACBB).

From the press release:

The Global Association of Craft Beer Brewers was founded last month, becoming the first international organisation for independent craft beer brewers. Sebastian Mergel, co-founder of the Berlin craft beer brewery Berliner Bierfabrik (formerly beer4wedding), was elected the association’s founding president. The association’s goal is to empower smaller independent brewers by connecting them on an international level, and to provide resources via association tools and collaborations with other members. With its international reach, the association also looks to provide its members with access to material goods and services that allow them to expand into new international markets.

The founding board members represent breweries in five different continents.

Sebastian Mergel, Bierfabrik, Berlin, Germany

Mark Andries, Browerij De Vlier, Belgium

David Cohen, The Dancing Camel, Tel Aviv, Israel

John Kyme, Stringer’s Beer, Ulverston, United Kingdom

Kristian Strunge, Stronzo, Copenhagen, Denmark

Jakub Veselý, Pivo Falkon, Zatec, Czech Republic

Alex Acker, Jing A, Beijing, China

Eric van Heerden, Triggerfish Brewing, Cape Town, South Africa

Aleem Ladak, The Big 5 Brewery, Nairobi, Kenya

Diego Rodríguez, Barbarian, Lima, Peru

Diego Perrotta, Cerveza Zeppelin, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Nathaniel Schmidt, Agua Mala Cerveceria, Ensenada, Mexico

Rodrigo Silveira, Cervejaria Invicta, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

Shane Welch, Sixpoint Brewing, Brooklyn, NY, United States

Kevin Watson, Elysian Brewing Co., Seattle, WA, United States

Dan Kenary, Harpoon Brewery, Boston, MA, United States

Ricky Stilla, Birra & Blues, Valencia, Spain

Tiffany Needham, Magpie Brewing Co., Seoul, South Korea

Shawn Sherlock, Murray’s Brewing Co., Port Stephen’s, Australia

To be a member of GACBB, breweries must be “local, independent, and creative.” The group’s first event will take place later this summer in Berlin, which they describe as a “celebration of craft beer from around the globe. The GACBB Global Craft Beer Festival, Craft Beer Award, and Craft Beer Conference will all take place this July in Berlin on July 25th through 27th, 2014.” The downside is that’s the same weekend as the Oregon Brewers Festival. On the other hand, it’s been awhile since I’ve been in Berlin.